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Saturday, 1 September 2012

Farewell to Summer Birds

The Robins are packing for their trip south. Or perhaps they have already left because I have not heard or seen any robins lately. Not that we get that many birds here. Outside of the ubiquitous magpies, we see or hear only an occasional robin, sometimes a sparrow and if we are really lucky, we are treated to the flash of grey as a little chickadee flits happily among the branches teasing us with his sweet "chicka dee dee dee".
Otherwise I have not seen too many bird species here in the city.

I used to have tons of gold finches, purple finches, house finches and pinesiskens at my place when I lived in Dauphin. They provided me with many hours of pleasure watching their antics at the feeders and the birdbath. I also had a few humming birds , though not as many as I would have like to see. My cousin, on a farm in Ethelbert, had dozens of them on her yard. I so envied her. Humming birds are so pretty and delightful.

We did see a purple finch this spring in my daughter's apricot tree. I think he was scouting for feeders but although we had a feeder hanging in the other tree, I think we scared the him off with the loudly rustling blue plastic tarp that covered a trench below for some electrical cable. The poor fellow never came back after that first reconnaissance trip. A pity too. I was so looking forward to seeing him and his family and friends visit us again.

I don't see any finches at all in my area of town (almost downtown Edmonton). Perhaps the magpies are scaring them off. Magpies are mean to the other species particularly to the nests and the young fledglings. The magpie is not an ugly bird but I don't like their aggressively brutal behavior to the other birds and I don't particularly like the sound of the young magpies after they hatch. They sound so raucous until their "voices change".